LibGuides: Art History: Indigenous resources in ANU Library collections on Art History

ANU Graduate Attribute - Insight into Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ knowledges and Indigenous peoples’ perspectives (IP-GA)

Development of this content supports the ANU Graduate Attribute - Insight into Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ knowledges and Indigenous peoples’ perspectives (IP-GA). Content that explicitly explores Indigenous ways of knowing relevant to the discipline.

Indigenous resources in ANU LIbrary Collections on Art & Design can be explored from the boxes below.

Indigenous Art History

Search the ANU Catalogue and SuperSearch with the following search terms to find books and articles and other resources on Indigenous topics in ANU Library Collections on Art and Design by using the suggested searches below.

art histor* AND (aborig* OR "australian aborig*" OR "aboriginal australian" OR "first nations" OR "australian indigenous" OR "indigenous australia*" OR indigenous OR "first nations" OR "torres strait" OR "torres strait islander")

A select list of books and ebooks is in the box below and click here for the full search results for books and e-books and for journal articles on the topic.

Australia by Katherine Aigner (Editor)
Call Number: 704.039915 A93815 2017
ISBN: 9788882714116
Publication Date: 2018
The Vatican Museums represent an aspect of the history of humanity through art. The Indigenous Australian collection is a little known and unexplored part of that story. Being amongst some of the earliest known documentations of Australian Indigenous cultures, the collection includes the earliest extant set of Pukumani poles from Melville and Bathurst Islands, alongside more recent contributions of artworks and cultural objects, and presents materials that have not been exhibited before in Australia.
A History of Aboriginal Art in the Art Gallery of New South Wales by Vanessa Russ
Call Number: View online
ISBN: 9781000398656
Publication Date: 2021
In this highly original study, Vanessa Russ examines the gradual invention of Aboriginal art within the Art Gallery of New South Wales. This process occurred as the social histories of Australia expanded and recognised Aboriginal people, through wars and political shifts, and as international organisations began placing pressure on nation states to expand, diversify, and respect multicultural perspectives. This book explores a state art institution as a case study to consider these complex narratives through a single history of Aboriginal art from early colonisation until today. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, museum studies, and Indigenous studies.
The dealer is the devil : an insider's history of the Aboriginal art trade by Adrian Newstead
Call Number: 704.039915 NEW
ISBN: 9781921556487
Publication Date: 2014
"Art dealers, like band managers, are not usually portrayed as heroes in our culture. Their role is to promote original artistic expression, although often they are viewed as exploiting it. As the title of this book indicates, Adrian Newstead, who has been a Sydney-based dealer in Aboriginal art for 40 years, is well aware of that negative stereotype. The reader may not have a warmer regard for art dealers after finishing this book, but it does offer a better understanding of how they operate. Now semi-retired, Newstead looks back on a career that began in the 1970s with the discovery of Aboriginal painters in the remote desert, many of whom had had little contact with white Australia, and now includes today's younger urban-based multimedia practitioners.
Encounters : revealing stories of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander objects from the British Museum by National Museum of Australia
Call Number: Chifley Large book N7401.E536 2015
ISBN: 9781921953262
Publication Date: 2015
This book is published to accompany this groundbreaking exhibition at the National Museum of Australia in Canberra, in which rare historic objects collected during encounters between settlers and first peoples are displayed alongside more recent artworks and artefacts made in the communities of origin. Encounters provides a stunning visual record of these objects, most of which are displayed in Australia for the first time since they were collected.
Aboriginal Art by Howard Morphy
Call Number: Chifley General N7400 .M67 1998 and other locations
ISBN: 9780714837529
Publication Date: 1998
For thousands of years, Australian Aborigines have been making art. A manifestation of the creative forces of Dreamtime, art is also a fundamental means of expressing individual and group identity. Howard Morphy surveys the great variety in Aboriginal art, showing the inter-relationships between such diverse art forms as body painting, dance, the decoration of weapons and utensils, and painting on bark and canvas.